I had really hoped that when "disinfo" first became a topic, we'd see institutions use those lessons to become more effective at communicating among divided epistomologies.

Instead it seems stuck in the futile exercise in attempting to close Pandora's box.

Initially we could skirt around this: the disinfo was largely foreign, which provided a useful demarcation for sorting "Truth". But inevitably that metric ceased to be useful because plenty of people domestically boost all sorts of stuff organically all the time.

Now its hard not to blame Facebook and others for being slow to act on Qanon and others. We failed to distinguish disinfo from Truth in any concrete way - and the trap was easy enough to see: "Disinfo" can become indistinguishable from "political discourse" absent such a standard

In other instances, we skirt around this uncomfortable issue by pointing at coordinated or "inauthentic" behaviors (have fun defining that consistently as well...). Again, the problem remains that at a certain point this becomes indistinguishable from Vox Populi

Ironically, I feel like the people who have really been learning are the "bad actors", who are effective as ever.

The "good guys" seem stuck in the mindset of driving up their h-index with publications, TED talks, op-eds, and other legacy markers of expertise.